


The Last Thing Burning

by Hagar



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Present Tense, Season/Series 01, Single POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 18:28:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5344124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The girl chases butterflies. No: she stalks. She teaches herself how to not disturb the trees and those who dwell in them, until she’s better at it than the Sky People’s hunters. Lincoln feels more kinship with her than he’d felt with anyone since he was a small child still, but old enough to be expected to kill, and not for food.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Thing Burning

The girl chases butterflies. No: she stalks. She minds her steps, touches her feet to the ground ball-first, keeps her arms tucked so as to not rustle branches and uses her core for balance instead. Lincoln watches from his perch as she teaches herself how to not disturb the trees and those who dwell in them, until she’s better at it than the Sky People’s hunters. Not that she hunts the butterflies, or the birds who sing: rather she stands still and watches them, her face alight with wonder.

She’s all of her slender limbs, smooth hair that tangles and light skin that must be stained with mud in order to evade the eye. Lincoln feels more kinship with her than he’d felt with his parents since he’s had a mind of his own - since he was a small child still, but old enough to go by himself, old enough to be expected to kill and not for food.

The girl hunts, birds big enough to have more than a bit of meat on them and other creatures small enough for her to carry. She hunts with traps and with stones; trap-making she seems to have had some instruction on, but how to judge distance, angle and the weight of the stone - those she needs to learn, and she also needs to put enough muscle on to throw stones big enough to do some damage, from a distance big enough for her to hide. 

She’s no need to hunt for herself. She’s the leader’s sister, and Bellamy Blake had made clear the price of threatening his sister or discomfiting her in any way. She’s safe in a way Lincoln never was and can’t imagine ever being, yet by all indications she’s been left to die before: die, or survive off her own means. 

As her skill increases she holds herself taller, lets her shoulders take up their due width and does not walk among her people as if she must not be seen. None of that’s pride; all of it - is quiet confidence. Yet as she works she frowns in concentration, presses her lips into a thin line; berates herself for failure, scolds herself as dead weight; cuts off her own words mid-syllable and resumes work, resumes practice.

That is which marks her as a warrior already, though one who has much skill to gain: that unlike the other Sky People she does hurry under the fear of death nor does she look away from it. Rather, it makes her angry. That anger is good, Lincoln knows: better that anger be the last thing burning, when the death around you becomes the death inside of you as well.

She kills her prey quickly and never lets it suffer needlessly, whether from pain or from fear. She kneels at the forest floor with her kill in her lap and speaks to it: apologizes for its death, thanks it for sustaining her life and promises to use it well. She uses everything she knows how; the feathers and the small furs she leaves behind. 

Lincoln collects them. It’s not kindness; she’s no idea he’s doing this and may shoot him on sight, anyway. It’s not for her he does this, anyway: it’s for that which they both honour, to not take a life and leave any of it to waste.

It’s not kindness, he tells himself as he picks up the injured girl in his arms, lost and bleeding in the woods and the Sky People nowhere near good enough to find her after dark. It can’t be kindness or they will both die, but for Lincoln, that’s no reason to leave her to die, either. And if he dies anyway, which is sure to happen if either Indra or the Sky People find him out -

He’s never been much good at anger, anyway. Let Octavia live one more day, and be angry at all the right things.


End file.
